American bomber drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima - Aug 06, 1945 - HISTORY.com This Day In History: 08/06/1945 - Atomic Bomb Hits Hiroshima President Harry Truman orders the Enola Gay to drop the atom bomb on Hiroshima, Cy Young joined major league baseball, the first woman swims the English Channel, and Jamaican independence is declared in This Day in History video. The date is August 6th. The atom bomb was also dropped on Nagasaki which helped end World War II when Japan surrendered. Lead Story American bomber drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima Share this: American bomber drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima Author American bomber drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima URL Publisher A+E Networks On this day in 1945, at 8:16 a.m. Japanese time, an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, drops the world’s first atom bomb, over the city of Hiroshima. Approximately 80,000 people are killed as a direct result of the blast, and another 35,000 are injured.

At least another 60,000 would be dead by the end of the year from the effects of the fallout. U.S. President Harry S. Truman, discouraged by the Japanese response to the Potsdam Conference’s demand for unconditional surrender, made the decision to use the atom bomb to end the war in order to prevent what he predicted would be a much greater loss of life were the United States to invade the Japanese mainland. And so on August 5, while a “conventional” bombing of Japan was underway, “Little Boy,” (the nickname for one of two atom bombs available for use against Japan), was loaded onto Lt. Col. Paul W. Tibbets’ plane on Tinian Island in the Marianas. Tibbets’ B-29, named the Enola Gay after his mother, left the island at 2:45 a.m. on August 6. Five and a half hours later, “Little Boy” was dropped, exploding 1,900 feet over a hospital and unleashing the equivalent of 12,500 tons of TNT.

The bomb had several inscriptions scribbled on its shell, one of which read “Greetings to the Emperor from the men of the Indianapolis” (the ship that transported the bomb to the Marianas). There were 90,000 buildings in Hiroshima before the bomb was dropped; only 28,000 remained after the bombing. Of the city’s 200 doctors before the explosion; only 20 were left alive or capable of working. There were 1,780 nurses before-only 150 remained who were able to tend to the sick and dying. According to John Hersey’s classic work Hiroshima, the Hiroshima city government had put hundreds of schoolgirls to work clearing fire lanes in the event of incendiary bomb attacks. They were out in the open when the Enola Gay dropped its load. There were so many spontaneous fires set as a result of the bomb that a crewman of the Enola Gay stopped trying to count them. Another crewman remarked, “It’s pretty terrific.

What a relief it worked.” Related Videos Manhattan Project: The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima, August 6, 1945 THE ATOMIC BOMBING OF HIROSHIMA (Hiroshima, Japan, August 6, 1945) The Manhattan Project and the Second World War, 1939-1945 In the early morning hours of August 6, 1945, a B-29 bomber named Enola Gay took off from the island of Tinian and headed north by northwest toward Japan. The bomber's primary target was the city of Hiroshima, located on the deltas of southwestern Honshu Island facing the Inland Sea. Hiroshima had a civilian population of almost 300,000 and was an important military center, containing about 43,000 soldiers. The bomber, piloted by the commander of the 509th Composite Group, Colonel Paul Tibbets, flew at low altitude on automatic pilot before climbing to 31,000 feet as it neared the target area. At approximately 8:15 a.m.

Hiroshima time the Enola Gay released "Little Boy," its 9,700-pound uranium gun-type bomb, over the city. Tibbets immediately dove away to avoid the anticipated shock wave. Forty-three seconds later, a huge explosion lit the morning sky as Little Boy detonated 1,900 feet above the city, directly over a parade field where soldiers of the Japanese Second Army were doing calisthenics. Though already eleven and a half miles away, the Enola Gay was rocked by the blast. At first, Tibbets thought he was taking flak. After a second shock wave (reflected from the ground) hit the plane, the crew looked back at Hiroshima. "The city was hidden by that awful cloud . . . boiling up, mushrooming, terrible and incredibly tall," Tibbets recalled. The yield of the explosion was later estimated at 15 kilotons (the equivalent of 15,000 tons of TNT). On the ground moments before the blast it was a calm and sunny Monday morning.

An air raid alert from earlier that morning had been called off after only a solitary aircraft was seen (the weather plane), and by 8:15 the city was alive with activity -- soldiers doing their morning calisthenics, commuters on foot or on bicycles, groups of women and children working outside to clear firebreaks. Those closest to the explosion died instantly, their bodies turned to black char. Nearby birds burst into flames in mid-air, and dry, combustible materials such as paper instantly ignited as far away as 6,400 feet from ground zero. The white light acted as a giant flashbulb, burning the dark patterns of clothing onto skin (right) and the shadows of bodies onto walls. Survivors outdoors close to the blast generally describe a literally blinding light combined with a sudden and overwhelming wave of heat. (The effects of radiation are usually not immediately apparent.) The blast wave followed almost instantly for those close-in, often knocking them from their feet. Those that were indoors were usually spared the flash burns, but flying glass from broken windows filled most rooms, and all but the very strongest structures collapsed. One boy was blown through the windows of his house and across the street as the house collapsed behind him.

Within minutes 9 out of 10 people half a mile or less from ground zero were dead. People farther from the point of detonation experienced first the flash and heat, followed seconds later by a deafening boom and the blast wave. Nearly every structure within one mile of ground zero was destroyed, and almost every building within three miles was damaged. Less than 10 percent of the buildings in the city survived without any damage, and the blast wave shattered glass in suburbs twelve miles away. The most common first reaction of those that were indoors even miles from ground zero was that their building had just suffered a direct hit by a bomb. Small ad hoc rescue parties soon began to operate, but roughly half of the city's population was dead or injured. In those areas most seriously affected virtually no one escaped serious injury. The numerous small fires that erupted simultaneously all around the city soon merged into one large firestorm, creating extremely strong winds that blew towards the center of the fire. The firestorm eventually engulfed 4.4 square miles of the city, killing anyone who had not escaped in the first minutes after the attack. One postwar study of the victims of Hiroshima found that less than 4.5 percent of survivors suffered leg fractures.

Such injuries were not uncommon; it was just that most who could not walk were engulfed by the firestorm. Even after the flames had subsided, relief from the outside was slow in coming. For hours after the attack the Japanese government did not even know for sure what had happened. Radio and telegraph communications with Hiroshima had suddenly ended at 8:16 a.m., and vague reports of some sort of large explosion had begun to filter in, but the Japanese high command knew that no large-scale air raid had taken place over the city and that there were no large stores of explosives there. Eventually a Japanese staff officer was dispatched by plane to survey the city from overhead, and while he was still nearly 100 miles away from the city he began to report on a huge cloud of smoke that hung over it. The first confirmation of exactly what had happened came only sixteen hours later with the announcement of the bombing by the United States. Relief workers from outside the city eventually began to arrive and the situation stabilized somewhat. Power in undamaged areas of the city was even restored on August 7th, with limited rail service resuming the following day.

Several days after the blast, however, medical staff began to recognize the first symptoms of radiation sickness among the survivors. Soon the death rate actually began to climb again as patients who had appeared to be recovering began suffering from this strange new illness. Deaths from radiation sickness did not peak until three to four weeks after the attacks and did not taper off until seven to eight weeks after the attack. Long-range health dangers associated with radiation exposure, such as an increased danger of cancer, would linger for the rest of the victims' lives, as would the psychological effects of the attack. No one will ever know for certain how many died as a result of the attack on Hiroshima. Some 70,000 people probably died as a result of initial blast, heat, and radiation effects. This included about twenty American airmen being held as prisoners in the city. By the end of 1945, because of the lingering effects of radioactive fallout and other after effects, the Hiroshima death toll was probably over 100,000. The five-year death total may have reached or even exceeded 200,000, as cancer and other long-term effects took hold.

At 11:00 a.m., August 6 (Washington D.C. time), radio stations began playing a prepared statement from President Truman informing the American public that the United States had dropped an entirely new type of bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima -- an "atomic bomb." Truman warned that if Japan still refused to surrender unconditionally, as demanded by the Potsdam Declaration of July 26, the United States would attack additional targets with equally devastating results. Two days later, on August 8, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and attacked Japanese forces in Manchuria, ending American hopes that the war would end before Russian entry into the Pacific theater. By August 9th, American aircraft were showering leaflets all over Japan informing its people that "We are in possession of the most destructive explosive ever devised by man. A single one of our newly developed atomic bombs is actually the equivalent in explosive power to what 2,000 of our giant B-29s can carry on a single mission. This awful fact is one for you to ponder and we solemnly assure you it is grimly accurate. We have just begun to use this weapon against your homeland.

If you still have any doubt, make inquiry as to what happened to Hiroshima when just one atomic bomb fell on that city." Meanwhile, Tibbets's bomber group was simply waiting for the weather to clear in order to drop its next bomb, the plutonium implosion weapon nicknamed "Fat Man" (left) that was destined for the city of Nagasaki. Sources and notes for this page . Portions of the text for this page were adapted from, and portions were taken directly from the Office of History and Heritage Resources publication: F. G. Gosling, The Manhattan Project: Making the Atomic Bomb (DOE/MA-0001; Washington: History Division, Department of Energy, January 1999) , 51-53.

Also used was the report on "The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki" in the official Manhattan District History, produced by the War Department in 1947 at the direction of Leslie Groves, especially pages 1-19; the "Atomic Bombings" document is available in the University Publications of America microfilm collection, Manhattan Project: Official History and Documents (Washington: 1977), reel #1/12; the report itself is a government document. Tibbets's description is from Paul W. Tibbets, "How to Drop an Atom Bomb," Saturday Evening Post 218 (June 8, 1946), 136. The estimate of Little Boy's yield is from United States Nuclear Tests, July 1945 through September 1992 (DOE/NV-209-REV 15; Las Vegas, NV: Nevada Operations Office, Department of Energy, December 2000) , vii. Summaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki casualty rates and damage estimates appear in Leslie R.

Groves, Now It Can Be Told (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), 319, 329-330, 346, and Vincent C. Jones, Manhattan: The Army and the Atomic Bomb, United States Army in World War II (Washington: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1988), 545-548. A translation of the leaflets dropped on Japan in between Hiroshima and Nagasaki can be found in Dennis Merrill, ed., Documentary History of the Truman Volume 1, The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb on Japan (Bethesda, MD: University Publications of America, 1995), 194-195. The photograph of the mushroom cloud is courtesy the United States Air Force (USAF) (via the National Archives (NARA)). The photographs of Little Boy and Fat Man are courtesy the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (via NARA). The photograph of the Enola Gay landing at Tinian Island is courtesy the USAF. The photograph of the woman with burns on her back is courtesy the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (via NARA).

The photographs of the mushroom cloud taken from the ground and of the debris (including the Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku "A-bomb" Dome) are courtesy the Federation of American Scientists . The photographs of the hospital and of the lone soldier walking through an almost-completely leveled portion of the city are courtesy the Department of the Navy (via NARA); the former was taken by Wayne Miller. The Crew of the Enola Gay on Dropping the Atomic Bomb | Mental Floss The Crew of the Enola Gay on Dropping the Atomic Bomb filed under: History Like us on Facebook On August 6, 1945—70 years ago today—the B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. Twelve men were on that flight. Some chose to keep a low profile and others spoke out about their place in history. Almost all had something to say after the war. The 509th Composite Group was formed by the US Army Air Force to deliver and deploy the first atomic bombs during World War II. The group was segregated from the rest of the military and trained in secret. Even those in the group only knew as much as they needed to know in order to perform their duties.

The group deployed to Tinian in 1945 with 15 B-29 bombers, flight crews, ground crews, and other personnel, a total of about 1770 men . The mission to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan (special mission 13) involved seven planes, but the one we remember was the Enola Gay. Captain Theodore Van Kirk, Navigator Air Force captain Theodore "Dutch" Van Kirk did not know the destructive force of the nuclear bomb before Hiroshima. He was 24 years old at that time, a veteran of 58 missions in North Africa. Paul Tibbets told him this mission would shorten or end the war, but Van Kirk had heard that line before. Hiroshima made him a believer. Van Kirk felt the bombing of Hiroshima was worth the price in that it ended the war before the invasion of Japan, which promised to be devastating to both sides . I honestly believe the use of the atomic bomb saved lives in the long run. There were a lot of lives saved. Most of the lives saved were Japanese. In 2005, Van Kirk came as close as he ever got to regret.

I pray no man will have to witness that sight again. Such a terrible waste, such a loss of life. We unleashed the first atomic bomb, and I hope there will never be another. I pray that we have learned a lesson for all time. But I'm not sure that we have. After the war, Van Kirk got a masters degree in chemical engineering and worked for DuPont until his retirement. Van Kirk passed away in 2014 . Major Thomas Ferebee, Bombardier Thomas Ferebee pushed the button that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. He slept in the plane both before and after he did his part. After the war, Ferebee stayed with the Air Force, serving in the Strategic Air Command and in Vietnam. He retired as a full Colonel . Colonel Ferebee, who retired from the Air Force in 1970, always argued that the Hiroshima bomb was necessary. "I'm convinced that the bombing saved many lives by ending the war," he told Newsweek magazine in 1970. That doesn't mean he had no opinion on the further use of such weapons.

"Now we should look back and remember what just one bomb did, or two bombs," he told The Charlotte Observer in 1995, the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. "Then I think we should realize that this can't happen again." Colonel Ferebee died in Florida in 2000, at the age of 81 . Lieutenant Jacob Beser, Electronic Countermeasures Army Air Force radar specialist Jacob Beser was the only man who served on both the Enola Gay in the Hiroshima bombing mission and the Bock's Car three days later when its crew bombed Nagasaki. He couldn't look at the detonation of the bombs because he was charged with monitoring for outside signals that could have detonated the bomb early and monitoring for signals of the proper detonation. This is addition for keeping an eye on radar for any enemy planes. In this 1985 interview for the Washington Post, Beser was asked if he would do it again. Given the same circumstances in the same kind of context, the answer is yes. However, you have to admit that the circumstances don't exist now. They probably never will again. I have no regrets, no remorse about it.

As far as our country was concerned, we were three years downstream in a war, going on four. The world had been at war, really, from the '30s in China, continuously, and millions and millions of people had been killed. Add to that the deliberate killing that went on in Europe, [and] it's kind of ludicrous to say well, geez, look at all those people that were instantly murdered. In November of 1945 there was an invasion of Japan planned. Three million men were gonna be thrown against Japan. There were about three million Japanese digging in for the defense of their homeland, and there was a casualty potential of over a million people. That's what was avoided. If you take the highest figures of casualties of both cities, say, 300,000 combined casualties in Hiroshima [and] Nagasaki, versus a million, I'm sorry to say, it's a good tradeoff. It's a very cold way to look at it, but it's the only way to look at it. Now looking into tomorrow, that's something else again. I don't have any pat answers for that.

After the war, Beser was an engineer at Sandia Laboratories where nuclear research continued and at Westinghouse where he worked on classified projects for the military. He retired in 1985. In 1988, Beser wrote a book called Hiroshima and Nagasaki Revisited . He died of cancer in 1992 at age 71 . Sergeant Joseph Stiborik, Radar Operator There isn't a lot of biographical information available on radar operator Joe Stiborik, except for some of his reminiscences of the mission . Joe Stiborik remembered the crew sitting in stunned silence on the return flight. The only words he recollected hearing were Lewis's "My God, what have we done." He explained, "I was dumbfounded. Remember, nobody had ever seen what an A-bomb could do before. Here was a whole damn town nearly as big as Dallas, one minute all in good shape and the next minute disappeared and covered with fires and smoke...There was almost no talk I can remember on our trip back to the base. It was just too much to express in words, I guess. We were all in a kind of state of shock.

I think the foremost thing in all our minds was that this thing was going to bring an end to the war and we tried to look at it that way." Stiborik died of a heart attack in 1984 at age 69 . 2nd Lieutenant Morris Jeppson, Ordnance Expert Morris Jeppson was only 23 years old when he was assigned to accompany the atomic bomb on the Enola Gay. It was his duty to arm the bomb and make sure it would work. Jeppson had the power to abort the mission if it didn't. It was his first and last mission of the war. Jeppson had worked in developing the mechanics of the bomb, and after the war he continued on the nuclear path. He studied physics at Berkeley and worked in the radiation laboratory there. Then he worked on developing hydrogen thermonuclear weapons at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. Jeppson went on to invent and market hi-tech machinery for medical and industrial uses. In 1995, Jeppson looked back at the Hiroshima mission. Until the 509th reunion that year Jeppson hadn't given the mission much thought.

"Those bomb plugs were just kicking around in a drawer" for years, he says. Still, he maintains that dropping the bomb on Hiroshima was a necessary means to help end the war. He points to wartime concerns that Germany was developing nuclear bomb technology. "If that had happened, the world would be an entirely different place (today)," he says. Jeppson passed away in 2010. Private Richard Nelson, Radar Operator Richard Nelson was the youngest of the Enola Gay crew. He was 20 years old in August of 1945. He relayed the news of the atomic bomb to his superiors in code, who forwarded it to President Truman: "Results excellent." After the war, Nelson got a degree in business administration and made a career as a salesman. Fifty years later, he had no regrets about his part in the mission . "War is a terrible thing," he told The Riverside Press-Enterprise on the 50th anniversary of the bombing. "It takes and it destroys. Anyone feels sorry for people who are killed. We are all human beings. But I don't feel sorry I participated in it.

If I had known the results of the mission beforehand, I would have flown it anyway." Nelson died from emphysema in 2003 at age 77. Staff Sergeant Robert Caron, Tail Gunner Enola Gay tail gunner Bob Caron wrote a book about the mission called Fire of a Thousand Suns . Despite his description of the bomb's effects, he never regretted being part of the mission . In an interview with the Rocky Mountain News published two weeks before he died, Mr. Caron said he had no regrets about his role in the World War II bombing. "No remorse, no bad dreams," he said. "We accomplished our mission." Caron died of pneumonia in 1995. He was 75 years old . Staff Sergeant Wyatt Duzenbury, Flight Engineer Wyatt Duzenbury kept tabs on the Enola Gay's engines and other systems while others tended the bomb and the mission itself. He considered it an honor to be chosen for the secret bombing mission that was to shorten the war. After 1945, he stayed with the Air Force. In his retirement, he looked back at the mission.

...he told the Lansing State Journal in 1985, "We were told to go, cranked up, dropped it, and came home." He told the newspaper that he didn't feel guilty about his mission, but did "not feel good about the 100,000 people who died." In an earlier interview, he said, "Personally, I feel that if we hadn't dropped that bomb, and the other crew hadn't dropped its bomb on Nagasaki, it would have cost thousand of US soldiers' lives establishing a beach head for the invasion of Japan." Duzenbury died in 1992 at age 71. Sergeant Robert H. Shumard, Assistant Flight Engineer Robert Shumard assisted flight engineer Wyatt Duzenbury in keeping the Enola Gay running. In this 1960 interview , Shumard said he didn't feel honored to do what they did, but he felt honored to be selected for the mission. And given the circumstances, he would do it again. "Nobody actually wants to cause the destruction we caused," he said. "But it was through a necessity rather than a wanton type of destruction. It was something that had to be done.

As much as a man has gangrene in his leg, and they have to cut it off. It's something that has to be done. It was a cancer in the world situation that had to be removed, that's all." Captain Deke Parsons, Weaponeer Naval gunnery officer William "Deke" Parsons was pulled from sea duty to work on the Manhattan Project in 1943. He helped turn the nuclear bomb into a weapon of war, from development to assembly to delivery. He armed the first atomic bomb while the Enola Gay was airborne. After the war, Parsons continued in nuclear weapons development, rising to the rank of Rear Admiral. He oversaw the Operation Crossroads nuclear testing project and also served on the Atomic Energy Commission. Parsons witnessed seven of the first eight nuclear explosions. There are no quotes available from Parsons as he was still serving in the Navy when he died of a sudden heart attack in 1953. He was 52 years old. Captain Robert Lewis, Co-Pilot Air Force flier Robert Lewis was a pilot first and foremost. He was upset that commander Paul Tibbets had named his plane the Enola Gay.

But he was also dedicated to the mission, and earned Tibbets' respect despite the animosity between the two. Lewis wrote a diary of the mission in a notebook during the flight to Hiroshima, against orders. He later sold it for $37,000. It was resold in 2002 for almost ten times that much. He is often quoted : "As the bomb fell over Hiroshima and exploded, we saw an entire city disappear. I wrote in my log the words: 'My God, what have we done?'" Some sources say that quote was a revision after the fact. Later in life, Lewis defended the mission . Over the past half century, some of the crew have returned to the city to take part in the annual commemoration celebrations. Lewis never did. For him "it was just a job of work. I helped make the world a safer place. Nobody has dared launch an atomic bomb since then. That is how I want to be remembered. The man who helped to do that." Lewis died of a heart attack at age 65 in 1983.

Colonel Paul Tibbets, Commander and Pilot Lieutenant Colonel Paul Tibbets was chosen to head the bomb delivery mission in September of 1944, and he selected the rest of the crew. At that time, the Manhattan Project was preparing to drop a bomb on Europe as well as Asia. After the mission, Tibbets remained in the Air Force until 1966, achieving the rank of Brigadier General. He worked as an aviation executive until his retirement in 1970. In a 2002 interview with Studs Terkel , Tibbets said he never had second thoughts about the mission: Number one, I got into the air corps to defend the United States to the best of my ability. That's what I believe in and that's what I work for. Number two, I'd had so much experience with airplanes... I'd had jobs where there was no particular direction about how you do it and then of course I put this thing together with my own thoughts on how it should be because when I got the directive I was to be self-supporting at all times. On the way to the target I was thinking: I can't think of any mistakes I've made.

Maybe I did make a mistake: maybe I was too damned assured. At 29 years of age I was so shot in the ass with confidence I didn't think there was anything I couldn't do. Of course, that applied to airplanes and people. So, no, I had no problem with it. I knew we did the right thing because when I knew we'd be doing that I thought, yes, we're going to kill a lot of people, but by God we're going to save a lot of lives. We won't have to invade [Japan]. Tibbets died in 2007 at age 92 . He had requested cremation and no physical memorial, because it would become a pilgrimage site for nuclear protesters. This post originally appeared in 2010. More from mental_floss... Take a tour of the Enola Gay, the U.S. plane that bombed Hiroshima - World - CBC News Take a tour of the Enola Gay, the U.S. plane that bombed Hiroshima Last remaining airman from Special Mission No.

13 died last week Posted: Aug 06, 2014 5:10 AM ET Last Updated: Aug 06, 2014 5:34 AM ET Hiroshima bombing anniversary 2:49 National Air and Space Museum backgrounder on the Enola Gay (Note: CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external links.) On August 6, 1945 the U.S. bomber Enola Gay dropped the first ever Atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Today, the re-assembled Boeing B-29 Superfortress remains a powerful symbol of the bombing as it sits on display at the U.S. National Air and Space Museum. In the video above, the CBC’s Meagan Fitzpatrick gets a tour of the Enola Gay at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia — an offshoot of the Washington museum. Col. Paul Tibbets named the modified Boeing B-29 bomber used in Special Mission No. 13 Enola Gay, after his mother.

(Associated Press) At the time of its mission, the Enola Gay was among the most sophisticated, propeller-driven bombers in the sky during the Second World War, according to the Smithsonian. The plane was further modified to carry the atomic bomb — dubbed “Little Boy” — which was dropped from the front bomb bay onto the heart of Hiroshima during the mission. Inside the window-covered nose of the plane, you can see where pilot Paul Tibbets and bombardier Tom Ferebee sat during Special Mission No. 13. Tibbets, a 30-year-old colonel at the time of the bombing, named the bomber after his mother. The plane’s navigator and last surviving member of the crew, Theodore Van Kirk, died last week at the age of 93. Before his death, Van Kirk told the Associated Press that while the mission went perfectly, and that he believed the bombing which killed some 140,000 people actually saved lives in the long run, he felt slightly conflicted. “I personally think there shouldn't be any atomic bombs in the world — I'd like to see them all abolished,” Van Kirk said.

Report Typo or Error Send Feedback To encourage thoughtful and respectful conversations, first and last names will appear with each submission to CBC/Radio-Canada's online communities (except in children and youth-oriented communities). Pseudonyms will no longer be permitted. By submitting a comment, you accept that CBC has the right to reproduce and publish that comment in whole or in part, in any manner CBC chooses. Please note that CBC does not endorse the opinions expressed in comments. Comments on this story are moderated according to our Submission Guidelines . Comments are welcome while open. We reserve the right to close comments at any time. Enola Gay and the Atom Bomb 1945: Atomic Bombs on Japan In short: Colonel Paul W. Tibbets waving from the cockpit of the Enola Gay before taking off on August 6, 1945. U.S. Air Force photo. On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay B-29 bomber flew over Hiroshima, Japan, and dropped the world's first atomic bomb. Three days later, the U.S. dropped another bomb on Nagasaki. The explosions annihilated tens of thousands of people and devastated the cities.

Stunned, the Japanese surrendered and World War II ended. The crew that dropped the bombs had trained in Utah’s West Desert. More of the story: It was a top-secret mission. Nobody was to know exactly why the 509th Composite Group had come to Wendover Air Base to train. Several bombardment groups had already come through Wendover to train on B-17s, B-24s, and B-29s. These crews bombed mockups of battleships and cities built in the desert. Fighter pilots also practiced here. The Enola Gay (Boeing B-29 Superfortress) at the Marianas Islands. U.S. Air Force photo. But in December 1944, the focus was on the 509th. 1,500 men had come to train and work toward a mission they didn’t understand. The technicians working on the components of the bombs didn’t understand. For much of the time, the only person in the 509th Composite Group who did understand the entire mission was commanding officer Colonel Paul Tibbets. Tibbets had the responsibility to oversee the training, logistics, and bombing.

The crews practiced dropping dummy bombs on Utah’s desert lands until they were ready. Then, on August 6, Tibbets piloted the Enola Gay in its flight over Hiroshima. The bomb destroyed 4.7 square miles of the city and killed 70,000-80,000 people instantly. 100,000 or more died within the following months from radiation, and others later developed cancers. Three days later, another crew dropped an atom bomb on Nagasaki—repeating the horror. Japan formally surrendered on August 14, 1945. Note: The huge hangar used to house the Enola Gay B-29 Superfortress still stands at Wendover Air Base . Atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima - Aug 06, 1945 - HISTORY.com Atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima Share this: Atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima Author Atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima URL Publisher A+E Networks On this day in 1945, at 8:16 a.m. Japanese time, an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, drops the world’s first atom bomb, over the city of Hiroshima.

Approximately 80,000 people are killed as a direct result of the blast, and another 35,000 are injured. At least another 60,000 would be dead by the end of the year from the effects of the fallout. U.S. President Harry S. Truman, discouraged by the Japanese response to the Potsdam Conference’s demand for unconditional surrender, made the decision to use the atom bomb to end the war in order to prevent what he predicted would be a much greater loss of life were the United States to invade the Japanese mainland. And so on August 5, while a “conventional” bombing of Japan was underway, “Little Boy,” (the nickname for one of two atom bombs available for use against Japan), was loaded onto Lt. Col. Paul W. Tibbets’ plane on Tinian Island in the Marianas. Tibbets’ B-29, named the Enola Gay after his mother, left the island at 2:45 a.m. on August 6.

Five and a half hours later, “Little Boy” was dropped, exploding 1,900 feet over a hospital and unleashing the equivalent of 12,500 tons of TNT. The bomb had several inscriptions scribbled on its shell, one of which read “Greetings to the Emperor from the men of the Indianapolis” (the ship that transported the bomb to the Marianas). There were 90,000 buildings in Hiroshima before the bomb was dropped; only 28,000 remained after the bombing. Of the city’s 200 doctors before the explosion; only 20 were left alive or capable of working. There were 1,780 nurses before—only 150 remained who were able to tend to the sick and dying. According to John Hersey’s classic work Hiroshima, the Hiroshima city government had put hundreds of schoolgirls to work clearing fire lanes in the event of incendiary bomb attacks. They were out in the open when the Enola Gay dropped its load. There were so many spontaneous fires set as a result of the bomb that a crewman of the Enola Gay stopped trying to count them.

Another crewman remarked, “It’s pretty terrific. What a relief it worked.” Related Videos 1000+ images about 1945, Aug 6 - Atomic bomb - Hiroshima on Pinterest | Days in, On august and Hiroshima Forward The day Hiroshima was reduced to dust. A rare photograph taken at the exact moment of detonation by a local In the image, Yoshito Matsushige had just overcome a kilometer zero point where the Hiroshima bomb was released at exactly 8:15 that morning of August, when he saw a bright Flash in the sky and felt the first wave of impact. Immediately, he looked up and saw a huge mushroom of smoke and heat skyrocketing. See More Two atomic bombs which were dropped on Japan Energy released: equivalent to 12.5 kilotons of TNT. Code name: “Little Boy”. Dropping the first atomic bomb At 2:45 A.M. local time (August 6, 1945), the Enola Gay, a B-29 bomber loaded with an atomic bomb, took off from the US air base on Tinian Island in the western Pacific.

Six and a half hours later, at 8:15 A.M. Japan time, the bomb was dropped and it exploded a minute later at an estimated altitude of 580 +- 20 meters over central Hiroshima. Initial explosive conditions Maximum temperature at burst point: several million degrees centigrade. A fireball of 15-meters radius formed in 0.1 millisecond, with a temperature of 300,000 degrees centigrade, and expanded to its huge maximum size in one second. The top of the atomic cloud reached an altitude of 17,000 meters. Black rain Radioactive debris was deposited by “black rain” that fell heavily for over an hour over a wide area. Damaging effects of the atomic bomb Thermal hear Intense thermal heat emitted by the fireball caused severe burns and loss of eyesight. Thermal burns of bare skin occurred as far as 3.5 kilometers from ground zero (directly below the burst point). Most people exposed to thermal rays within 1-kilometer radius of ground zero died. Tile and glass melted; all combustible materials were consumed.

Blast An atomic explosion causes an enormous shock wave followed instanteneously by a rapid expansion of air called the blast; these represent roughtly half the explosion's released energy. Maximum wind pressure of the blast: 35 tons per square meter. Maximum wind velocity: 440 meters per second. Wooden houses within 2.3 kilometers of ground zero collapsed. Concrete buildings near ground zero (thus hit by the blast from above) had ceilings crushed and windows and doors blown off. Many people were trapped under fallen strunctures and burned to death. Radiation People exposure within 500 meters of ground zero was fatal. People exposed at distances of 3 to 5 kilometers later showed symptoms of aftereffects, including radiation-induced cancers. Bodily injuries Acute symptoms Symptoms appearing in the first four months were called acute. Besides burns and wounds, they included: general malaise, fatigue, headaches, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, abnormally low white blood cell count, bloody discharge, anemia, loss of hair. Aftereffects Prolonged injuries were associated with aftereffects.

The most serious in this category were: keloids (massive scar tissue on burned areas), cataracts, leukemia and other cancers. Atomic demographics Population The estimated pre-bomb population was 300,000 to 400,000. Because official documents were burned, the exact population is uncertain. Deaths With an uncertain population figure, the death toll could only be estimated. According to data submitted to the United Nations by Hiroshima City in 1976, the death count reached 140,000 (plus or minus 10,000) by the end of December, 1945. Health card holders Persons qualifying for treatment under the A-bomb Victims Medical Care law of 1957 received Health Cards; holders as of March 31, 1990, numbered 352,550. Nagasaki The atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki exploded at 11:02 A.M. on August 9.

Using plutonium with an explosive power of 20 kilotons of TNT-equivalent, it left an estimated 70,000 dead by the end of 1945, although both population and the deaths are uncertain. Photos (click to enlarge the image) Manhattan Project — Journey of the dead Hiroshima — August 7, 1945

Question: August 6, 1945 saw the US bomber Enola Gay drop the first atomic bomb on what Japanese city?
Answer: Hiroshima